Two dead as MSC Flaminia aflame and adrift after mid-Atlantic explosion

THE 6,732-TEU MSC Flaminia was ablaze and adrift with two crewmen lost after a mid-Atlantic explosion in the hold while carrying 2,876 containers from Charleston to Antwerp.

Twenty-three of the 25-man crew abandoned ship after a chemical fire broke out in the hold, causing an explosion which killed one man in the blast, reported Containerisation International. Survivors were picked up from a lifeboat by a tanker and the injured seafarers were transferred to another MSC ship for hospitalisation in the Azores.

This the latest in a series of accidents which have befallen the Mediterranean Shipping Company of Geneva.

In 2007, there was the loss of the 4,688-TEU MSC Napoli in the English Channel, followed by the collision of the 2,314-TEU MSC Chitra with a 33,113-ton bulk carrier in 2010 on the Hoogly River channel into Calcutta, and last October's loss of the MSC 3,037-TEU MSC Rena off New Zealand's North Island. More recently, the MSC-operated 4,437-TEU Carole ran aground on a reef off Jakarta.